What's been growing on

Father's Day

While we haven't downloaded pictures yet from the weekend, we did have a great one. Strawberry picking on Saturday took us out to the country in Monroe, and along the beautiful Snohomish River. After picking (too much for my back, I'm afraid), we went to a little farmer's market where the kids could ride ponies.

Sunday, Lucy jumped out of bed to hug Rob and say happy father's day of her own volition. He was thrilled. He made strawberry pie from our friend Ali - YUM! and I made this smoked salmon quiche, but I substituted sauteed asparagus for the artichoke hearts and green onions for the dill (since that is what we had available). The elder Browns joined us for brunch.

A beautiful bonus at the end of the day is that we ran into friends and neighbors Richard and Arlene and a Chilean family staying with them. The Chilean family has been traveling around the U.S. for five months with their three kids. After hanging out at the park in the afternoon, we joined them for a BBQ at Arlene and Richard's in the evening. It was a super-fun surprise ending to the weekend. And a perfect end to Rob's big day: delicious food with good friends and foreign travellers in the middle of a long journey, plus a backyard fire, wine and beautiful children running around? Heaven...

In Color

A few of my favorite shots of the weekend... Generally, the weekend was beautiful and cloudy and relaxing and fun... Salmonberries, time with just the four of us and friends - human and bird - and other garden delights...

This and That

Lucy sang with a few other girls from the Northwest Girlchoir at the Seattle Homeschool Talent Show last week. She is third from the right in the fancy dress. Check it out!

Lucy just got back from an overnight with Grandma. Jasper took that time to get in touch with his inner (and outer) boyishness, riding his trike madly around Paramount Park in the morning, riding his bike madly around Paramount Park in the evening, with lots of "Momma throw me the ball" requests in between as he (rather skillfully) wielded one of Rob's badminton rackets. The sibs had a joyful reunion tonight, but each seemed to appreciate getting some extended space away from each other. I took the opportunity to deep clean Lucy's room. We all needed that to happen...

My goal is to get the whole house straightened and clean by the beginning of summer: it could happen...

Happiness is....

springtime...

Catching My Breath

Between all the end-of-school-year stuff and the stunning weather which has us on extended outdoorsy outings, we have been busy beavers around here. Today, the kids and I welcomed the chance to be at home all day and catch up a bit with the projects we'd been neglecting (for Lucy and Jasper "projects" actually refers to a fairly extensive series of things they play together that I'd be challenged to succinctly describe and for me "projects" mostly consist of making food and cleaning the kitchen). An enormous and constantly growing pile of laundry still awaits, but otherwise I am feeling a bit more grounded right now than I have in a while. You'd think since Lucy and Jasper don't actually go to school that the end of the school year timing would be irrelevant, but not so... Lucy's (too) many activities also tend to revolve around the traditional school year, so many of them have just finished or are finishing in the next week or two. She's performed in two concerts, one puppet show, had several potluck parties and last classes in the past week or two -- fun yet exhausting for all of us (maybe Jasper and me the most...).
Here are a few pictures from last weekend (before we have a new batch from this weekend - unfortunately, our weekdays generally remain undocumented since I rarely remember to take pictures...).
Love the pic of Jasper at a trendy Seattle coffee shop...

Lucy with concert doo and duds...

Jasper pleased at having his picture taken while waiting for his scoop at Molly Moon's Ice Cream.

Lucy's first dip into Green Lake this year. Love the beach (well lawn, not really beach) at the bathhouse, except for the buckets of goose poop... Yikes! Watch your step...

And a sweet picnic with friends afterwards...

It's all good, folks (and apparently laundry-producing...).